Autodesk Maya 2014 Essentials: Autodesk Official Press

Learn Maya Quickly and Easily Featuring step-by-step tutorials, full-color illustrations, and hands-on exercises, this practical guide gets you up to speed on core Maya topics such as modeling, texturing, animating, rigging, lighting, rendering, and setting a scene. You'll develop real-world skills, get comfortable with Maya workflows, and increase your productivity, whether you're new to Maya or migrating from another 3D application. And, not only does this book thoroughly cover the fundamentals of Autodesk Maya, it also gives you a good start in preparing for the Autodesk Maya 2014 Certified Professional exam. Learn these Autodesk Maya essentials—and more: The Maya 2014 interface, menus, and tools Simple animation—set keyframes, adjust tangents, and create playblasts Modeling with polygons—bodies, faces, and cleanup before rigging Adding character with blend shapes and surfaces Building bone structure, adding joints, and weighting joints Rigging, animating, and lighting basics How to render and composite an animation Setting the camera and setting up your scene Model, rig, and animate a character Build a set, apply surfaces, and light the scene This striking Essentials book features: Chapter-opening learning objectives Step-by-step tutorials Full-color screenshots and illustrations Essentials and Beyond—summaries and additional suggested exercises Downloadable exercise files

Introduction xvi Chapter 1 Understanding the Maya Interface 1 Exploring Interface Elements 2 Views 2 Time Slider 3 Range Slider 4 Toolbox Window 4 Shelves  5 Moving Views and Manipulating Objects 5 Using Maya Windows and Menus 8 Setting Preferences 10 Preferences Window 10 Settings Used for the Tutorials  12 Getting Help  12 Chapter 2 Creating Your First Animation 15 Using Good Scene–File Management 15 Creating and Animating a Bouncing Ball  18 Selecting a View and Turning On the Resolution Gate  18 Creating a Ball  19 Setting Movement Keyframes 21 Refining Movement in the Graph Editor 24 What’s Wrong with the Way My Ball Is Bouncing? 24 Adjusting Spline Tangents 25 Breaking Tangents for Fast Direction Changes  26 Using Animation Principles to Improve Your Work  28 Squash  28 Stretch  29 Creating a Playblast of Your Animation 31 Chapter 3 Modeling with Polygons, Part 1 35 Understanding Polygons 35 Vertex  35 Edges  36 Constructing a Good Model 37 The Importance of Quads  37 The Problem With Ngons 38 Getting Started and Using the Main Modeling Tools  38 Setting Up View Planes  39 Starting with a Cube  42 Extruding Faces 43 Box Modeling and Building a Character  45 Refining the Character’s Geometry 55 Using the Insert Edge Loop Tool 56 Using the Split Polygon Tool  60 Shaping Your Character 65 Chapter 4 Modeling with Polygons, Part 2 69 Creating Edge Loops 69 Getting Started: Deleting Edges and Setting Tool Options 70 Building Your Edge Loops 72 Adjusting Vertices, Polygons, and Edges, and Adding Details  80 Creating Eyebrows 86 Chapter 5 Modeling with Polygons, Part 3 91 Refining and Cleaning Up 91 Adding Geometry for Good Deformations  91 Cleaning Up the Model 96 Positioning Your Character for Rigging  98 Adding Eyeballs  100 Mirroring Your Model 102 Deleting History  106 Chapter 6 Sur facing Your Character 109 Creating a Surface 109 Using the Hypershade Window  109 Using the Marking Menu 114 Laying Out UVs 117 Understanding the UV Space 117 Performing the UV Layout 118 Texture Mapping 126 Creating a Color Map 126 Applying Your Color Map 128 Applying Additional Surfaces 132 Chapter 7 Get ting Bent Out of Shape: Blend Shapes 135 Understanding Blend Shapes and How They Work 135 Deformer Order  135 Blend Shapes  136 Creating Deformers for Your Character 137 Planning for Facial Deformers 138 Creating Your Facial Blend Shapes 139 Setting Up the Blend Shape Interface  144 Chapter 8 Dem Bones: Set ting Up Your Joint System 147 Understanding How Joints Work  147 Building Joint Chains 148 Picking the Correct View for a Chain  148 Starting in the Middle (of the Character) 148 Naming Joints  153 Creating the Leg Chain  154 Creating the Arm Chain  157 Putting It All Together  162 Mirroring Joint Chains  162 Using Variables for Naming 163 Connecting All Your Chains  165 Putting It to Use: Connecting the Joints to Your Model 168 Using Smooth Bind  168 Skinning Joints to Your Model  168 Parenting the Eyes to the Skeleton  170 Chapter 9 Weighting Your Joints 173 Understanding Joint Weighting and Why It’s Important  173 Joint Influence on Deformation  173 Why You Used the Options You Did at the End of the Last Chapter  174 Adjusting Weights 174 Strategies for Assigning Weights 175 Paint Skin Weights Tool—Add  175 Paint Skin Weights Tool—Replace  176 Painting Your Weights 176 Mirroring Weights  183 Chapter 10 Rigging Your Character 185 Understanding Basic Rigging Concepts 185 Forward Kinematics 185 Inverse Kinematics  186 Setting Up the Leg Controls 186 Creating Leg IK Chains 186 Creating an External Control Handle 190 Connecting the IK Chains to the Handle 192 Using Pole Vector Constraints for Controlling the Knee 194 Setting Up the Torso Control 196 Creating the Torso Control Handle 196 Connecting the Torso Control 197 Setting Up the Character Control  198 Creating the Character Control Handle  198 Connecting the Character Control Handle 199 Creating a Custom Shelf 200 Chapter 11 Set ting the Scene: Creating an Environment 205 Building a Room 205 Creating the Floor and Walls 206 Texturing the Floor and Walls 208 Building Props 213 Creating a Table  213 Creating a Poster  217 Chapter 12 Making It Move: Animating Your Character 221 Setting Up Maya for Animation  221 Setting Key Tangents 221 Creating a Camera and Turning On the Resolution Gate  222 Locking Down the Camera  224 Animating Your Character 226 Creating a Pop–Thru 226 Timing the Pop–Thru 230 Adding Breakdown Poses 231 Polishing the Animation  233 Chapter 13 Let There Be Light: Lighting Your Shot 237 Understanding the Three–Point Lighting System 238 Key Light  238 Fill Light 239 Rim Light 240 Using the Maya Lights  241 Directional Light  241 Spot Light 242 Point Light  243 Lighting Your Scene 244 Placing Your Lights  244 Setting the Intensity of Your Lights  247 Casting Shadows  250 Performing Light Linking  252 Chapter 14 Rendering and Compositing Your Scene 255 Making 2D Images Out of 3D Scenes 255 Smoothing Your Model  256 Setting Your Render Preferences 257 Running a Batch Render  260 Finding Your Frames 261 Performing Compositing  261 Compositing Your Frames 262 Using Other Compositing Options  266 Appendix A Autodesk® Maya® 2014 Certification 269 Index 275

Paul Naas is a professional animator and educator. He runs the Multimedia and Computer Graphics program at Canada College in Redwood City, California, and has done animation work for companies such as Disney, Cisco, bZillions/C2 Gaming, and the Children's Discovery Museum. He is also a professional cartoon artist. Paul has a Master of Fine Arts in Animation from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco.